Oil and natural gas wells often utilize wellbore components or tools that, due to their function, are only required to have limited service lives that are considerably less than the service life of the well. After a component or tool service function is complete, it must be removed or disposed of in order to recover the original size of the fluid pathway for use, including hydrocarbon production, CO2 sequestration, etc. Disposal of components or tools has conventionally been done by milling or drilling the component or tool out of the wellbore, which are generally time consuming and expensive operations.
In order to eliminate the need for milling or drilling operations, the removal of components or tools from the wellbore by dissolution or corrosion using various dissolvable or corrodible materials has been proposed. While these materials are useful, it is also very desirable that these materials be lightweight and have high strength, including a strength comparable to that of conventional engineering materials used to form wellbore components or tools, such as various grades of steel. Thus, the further improvement of dissolvable or corrodible materials to increase their strength, corrodibility and manufacturability is very desirable.